10:16 a.m.
“Did you see this?” Jess shouts to me from the open front door.
I shiver as I yell, “Close the door! I don’t pay to heat the outdoors.” My father used to shout that, and I regret saying it the moment I do.
“You sound like Grandpa.” A nearly audible eye roll follows.
Jess remembers little of my father; his name coming from her mouth throws me off guard—a seldom occurrence. When Jess sees this, she rushes to hug me. Her body is bigger than I recall—even from last night. Every second she isn’t in my arms, she reverts to a slight twelve-year-old, so it’s always a momentary shock when her adult figure is almost my size.
“Sorry, Mom. I know hearing his name still hurts,” she almost whispers.
It doesn’t. I nod anyway. Inwardly, I cringe at “Mom,” though. The word still holds memories of a woman gouging lines and drawing tear-shaped red droplets along my crayon-drawn fairy’s neck. Whenever Jess is around, I feel more. I think it’s why I agreed to have a child; I heard about the connection women have to things that come from inside of them. I hoped it would work like that for me. I think I even hoped I wouldn’t need any more sweethearts. Then I collected another. No child could bring me what that does.
“It smells like cookies! Did you bake while I slept?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “I wear vanilla behind my ears sometimes.” To make me more approachable.
She takes a big whiff. “Maybe I should do that too! But then I’d always crave sweets and get super fat.” A pregnant pause. “So, I’ve slept, I’ve gotten the paper, I assume you’re going to let me make some breakfast soon-ish, now can we talk about Dad?”
I cast my eyes down and nod again—my go-to for emotions I don’t understand. “Yes.”
“So you guys split up. At some point, I figured you two were a stay-together-for-the-kid couple.” She goes into the kitchen and grabs a mug from the cabinet by the stove. “Want one?”
“Sure, thanks.” I wait a moment. “So, do you have questions?” She’s an adult, so I hope she doesn’t.
The gas burner click, click, clicks. “Will I get two Thanksgivings and Christmases?” Her eyebrow sounds raised, even though it isn’t.
“Do you want two?”
I watch Jess’s lip twitch as she considers it. “No.” She pours milk into a saucepan. “You guys should put up with each other for me, if possible.”
“You got it. Your dad will be here around noon.”
“Perfect. Now, did you know about that?” She pokes her elbow towards the two newspapers she brought in from the stoop.
I shake my head. “Probably not. Before we switch gears, you don’t have anything else to ask?”
“What is there to ask? You two weren’t happy. Last night, you seemed happier than you have in a while. But you were a bit blurry, so you could have been frowning.” She shrugs. “That about right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there you go.”
“Okay then,” I say. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks for waiting until I moved out, though.” She pulls out a pan and takes eggs out of the refrigerator. “Now, what’s going on with that headline?”
“Ice Storm On the Way,” I read aloud.
Jess grabs a bowl and fork-scrambles eggs with a splash of milk. It’s so advanced, I stop paying attention. “Not that one.” Jess sounds exacerbated. “The other one. It says a Jane Doe was found.”
My face goes cold, and I assume I look as if a vampire had its way with me. “Oh?” I gulp, then turn and head towards the bathroom.
“I haven’t read it yet, just saw it, and thought you might have heard. Not a lot of crime that I can remember,” Jess continues.
“No, there isn’t.”
Papers rustle, and Jess clears her throat. “Early this morning, a Jane Doe was found under the bridge at Lynn Pond. How sad!” Everything goes white. She stops reading, and I hold my breath. “Looks like the police aren’t sharing much, just that she wasn’t murdered there, and they have persons of interest. That’s about as helpful as anything. The article is only two paragraphs long—a bunch of buzz words and hype. Whenever I see all that, I figure they don’t have much, and they’re banking on someone calling in with information. You alright in there?”
Who me? “Yeah. Yesterday’s frozen lunch is catching up to me.” I steer the conversation elsewhere. “How’s breakfast coming?”
“Don’t rush perfection. I’ll flip through and see if anything else is worth reading about. Our papers are so huge, filled with violence, corrupt politician scandals, government policy changes. Silynn has twelve pages. Twelve pages! And one of them is an ad for a new dentist in Lorla Falls. I forget how different the world is here.”
They found Lori. They found Lori. Nostalgia is going to ruin everything. Should I get rid of my sweetheart memorabilia?
“Wow.”
My heart skips a beat. “What?” No more bad news.
“Silynn was hurting for news before the Jane Doe. Some woman named Adelynn Bailey coming back to town made it to page four on the day before’s paper. Apparently, she found a dead girl from Lynn Pond a long time ago. That place sounds like it has bad juju. Those poor families!”
“I wonder why she’s back.”
“Who?”
“Adelynn Bailey,” I say. Sometimes I worry medicating Jess as a child was to her detriment. If she hadn’t taken pills when she was thirteen, Jess might be a bit smarter.
“Wait. Why? Do you know her?”
Clearing my throat, I say, “No, but everyone knows her name.” At least, those of us who have a stake in her memory—or lack thereof. “It’s just curiosity, really.”
“See? The papers did their job: made news from nothing. Hopefully, my visit will make the front page of the Silynn Times tomorrow! Samantha and Taylor Pruette’s daughter returns for the holiday!”
I sound as dismissive as I am, as I say, “Maybe so.”
Hiding in the bathroom can only be a solution for so long, I know. I flush and wash my clean hands before heading back out to keep up the facade.
“Perfect timing,” Jess says, as I walk into the kitchen. She wipes a little chocolate splatter up with a white and red polka-dotted towel and grabs a ladle. “Hot cocoa and cheesy scrambled eggs are ready.”
“Great, thanks. Looks delicious.”
My face must show my worry over Lori being found. I didn’t leave any trace of me. Adelynn Bailey’s presence in town adds another layer of stress. She doesn’t come home often—why now? And why is this happening when I need to sneak away to find another sweetheart?
“Mom,” Jess says and puts her soft hand over my white-knuckled fist. “Everything will be okay.” Will it?
12:11 p.m.
“I can’t believe he’s standing us up.” She’s clutching her third cup of cocoa, but her hand may as well be on her hip. “And on Thanksgiving!”
“I’m sure your dad is only running late.” We both know Taylor never runs late.
Jess slurps down the last sip of chocolate. “I’m grabbing another. Want one?”
“Might want to slow down there.”
“I can have as many as I want.” I see a five-year-old version of Jess stomping around in her favorite mermaid jellies.
“Yeah, you’re right.” I’m in no mood to pick an argument. All I want to do is move this day along so I can find out what the police know about Lori.
The front door shakes with a knock.
“I guess you’ll get your wish; I won’t have another cup of cocoa now.” She throws a smirk my way before racing to throw the door open. “Dad!” she squeals. “Where were you? It’s fifteen minutes past when you were supposed to be here. What was I supposed to think? You and Mom split up, and what? I’m chopped liver? Not cool, Dad. Not cool.”
I imagine my daughter as chopped liver; then make Taylor into ribbons of onions. It suddenly becomes necessary to consume my family. I salivate and reach for my mug—empty. Looks like I’ll drink Jess’s fourth cup of cocoa for her.
Taylor is speechless.
“Enough of that,” Jess says, shaking invisible dirt off her. “I’ve missed you!”
Taylor’s deep-set features soften. “Me too, Rugrat! It’s been too long.” I turn away from their hug; it’s intrusive to see affection.
Jess waves towards our—my—living room. “Come in, Dad. I’ve been waiting to tell Mom something until you got here.”
Taylor sits in the recliner. Its old hinges squeak. “Okay. Shoot.” I can’t; my father’s gun is locked and under the bed.
“Cole and I are getting married!” I can see Jess spinning around with a bouquet in her hand. Her hair is as blunt as it is now, so she’s an ugly bride. Jess pauses only a moment before adding, “And I’m leaving to meet his family in Prague tomorrow night. My flight is early the next morning. I’m sorry I’m leaving earlier than planned. And he’s so sorry he couldn’t make it. It added $400 to the ticket price to come here for a few days, and he didn’t have it. This has all been so crazy.”
Taylor chooses platitudes to buy time to process. “Wow, honey! That’s big news.”
I’m not nodding. “You’re getting married?” I ask for double-clarification.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” She sighs. “I’ve never been this happy!” My daughter is a frog with an open chest. I envision a heart beating from within the y-shaped incision. Our beats are out of sync. It turns out she is nothing like me.
I remember March 10th, 1993 like it was yesterday. The flowers reminded me of a funeral home. Fitting. In some ways, my wedding was a celebration of my independence dying. Formaldehyde filled my nostrils instead of the dabs of vanilla extract on my neck and behind my ears. I stared in the mirror and touched my face. I was warm and soft, not like my grandmother; she had been cold and waxy. Her skin had slid a little as if it were a mask lying on her skull.
Taylor was supposed to be the love of my life. My face had been frozen in a grimace I’d forced into a smile before I trudged down the aisle.
My father held my arm loosely. We’d grown apart over the years, but he’d insisted on being involved. As I strode past my grandfather, his cologne overwhelmed the imagined scents of death. Taylor’s best friend, Maggie, cried—not for us, but for herself and the loss of what she never had. She’d loved Taylor long before I came into the picture. I felt calm, bored despite the mourners around me.
A smiling Taylor waited for me under a small arch suffocated by twinkle lights. I think the ill-fitting suit was the one worn to a co-worker’s wake the year before. Knowing I wouldn’t care showed that Taylor understood me as much as anyone could and accepted that I could never be more than I was—than I am.
That was until a few days ago. Will the same thing happen to Jess? She hasn’t dated much, so she’s never experienced heartbreak like most people I’ve watched. If someone breaks her heart, I won’t be able to do anything. I can’t put a broken thing back together.